Bonnie and Clyde by Grace + 2 Comments

What better for Valentine's Day than a romantic little love story? About bank robbers.

I've been wanting for a while to review some older films here at Heroine Content, and one that always comes up is 1967's Bonnie and Clyde (directed by Arthur Penn, who also did Alice's Restaurant and Little Big Man). Starring a young and handsome Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and an even younger and more handsome Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, the movie tells the tale of the notorious class avenging bank robbers from the 1930s. The film is not totally concerned with historical accuracy, but more with a romantic take on the relationship between Bonnie and Clyde and a fun take on their crimes.

And it is both fun and romantic, but what really blew my mind was Bonnie. Faye Dunaway missed her calling when she wasn't an action heroine for the rest of her career. Her Bonnie is fearless, fun loving, incredibly stylish, and overtly and unabashedly sexual. Her gun-toting and complete willingness to shoot is impressive, but her creativity and spirit are what put her over the top. She also walks a fine line of being sexual yet unexploited that almost never happens in films now, much less in the 60s. Yes, the film begins with a totally unnecessary nude scene of her, but it is so easily redeemed by everything afterwards.

It isn't just Bonnie that surprised me, but the interaction between her and Clyde. One of the major tensions in their relationship, from the beginning of the film, is Bonnie's desire for sex and Clyde's unwillingness/inability to have sex with her. This isn't just mentioned once and dropped--it's an issue throughout, about which Bonnie chides Clyde more than once. When the two finally do have sex, it becomes clear that while Bonnie has sexual experience, Clyde has none. She even tells him afterwards that he did well, in much the voice a teacher would use towards a young student. I am hard-pressed to find another example of a film that handles a heterosexual relationship this way without portraying the more experienced woman as some kind of a "cougar." (For comparison, I am reminded instantly of The Graduate, which was released the same year.)

It's too bad, then, that the other gender portrayals in the film don't have any of the depth of Faye Dunaway's Bonnie Parker. The other major female role, Blanche, Clyde's brother Buck's wife and the only unwitting member of the Barrow Gang, is played by Estelle Parsons (whom you'll likely remember as Roseanne's mom, Bev, on Roseanne). She is unbelievably irritating, always complaining and screaming, and the only member of the gang who not only never participates in any robberies, but won't even pick up a gun in self-defense. She also ends up being essential to Bonnie and Clyde's downfall, first for failure to carry her own money and then because she can't keep her mouth shut. She's not just an awful character (she's really no more irritating than Gene Hackman's Buck), but she's a completely stereotypically awful woman. And maybe this only serves to show more clearly how incredibly cool Bonnie is, but it still bugs me.

There is nothing truly revolutionary about gender roles in Bonnie and Clyde. The gang is named after the man and he is more or less in charge. However, particularly given that the film was made in 1967, Bonnie is allowed to be a much bigger and more developed character, and a much more complete (anti)hero than most female characters. Watching the film I was surprised that Faye Dunaway's Bonnie Parker hasn't reached a more iconic status. I'm not sure our current crop of heroines could have existed without her.

Race in Bonnie and Clyde is about what you would expect for a film made in 1967 about the 1930s. The major characters are all white. There is a scene early on where Bonnie and Clyde are talking to an evicted sharecropper and the sharecropper has a Black "hired man" with him, who is treated more or less respectfully, but that's the only instance of anyone non-white I can remember in the film.

I am giving Bonnie and Clyde three stars. I think it is an important movie in the history of female action heroes, and a damn good film in and of itself.

Posted by Grace in 3 Stars: Strong Contenders